The government is planning to invest Rs 750 crore to upgrade the 1,396 ITIs into centres of excellence in specific trades and skills. The effort is being put to meet the industry?s demand for skilled manpower and address unemployment.
The ministry of labour and employment has prepared a proposal for the purpose, which will be placed before the Cabinet soon.
The proposal also includes an interest-free loan of up to Rs 2.5 crore per ITI for upgrade and revision of courses. In his Budget speech, finance minister P Chidambaram had proposed that all ITIs would be raised to a higher grade and transformed into centres of excellence under the public-private partnership model.
The scheme Chidambaram outlined envisaged a tripartite agreement with a private sector organisation, state government and the central government. The new management of the ITIs will also be given academic and financial autonomy.
As many as 400 ITIs will be upgraded through World Bank assistance and 100 more with domestic resources. According to a study done by Ficci, several ITIs are facing challenges of outdated machinery, inadequate curriculum with poor linkages to industry demands. The vocational training system is also unable to provide the required skills for employment and low quality of faculty and is have inadequate placement services.
?The system is producing ?educated? persons without adequate vocational orientation or industry specific skills. As a result, most industries are being forced to undertake extensive training of persons before they can be ?employable? and productive.
In addition to diverting scarce resources, this process is sub-optimal,? the report said. Rapid industrial development has created demands for skilled manpower in the new economy that are currently un-addressed. With a nationwide membership of over 1500 corporates and over 500 chambers of commerce and business associations, FICCI is hopeful of enhancing the professional and vocational education and training of students in ITIs.
FICCI has also signed a MoU with IL&FS for content creation, curriculum design and to set up a trainers programme for the ITIs. They will also monitor expenditure of the Government?s assistance and provide support in activities such as refurbishing the ITI buildings and bringing in equipment.
Industry chamber CII is working out a new model to replace the Indian Management Committee (IMC) model for better intervention and upgradation of skills in the ITIs. The model is expected to be ready soon and will be sent to the finance ministry for clearance. This will help the students of the technical training institutes address the issue of placement and introduce an improvised syllabus in keeping with the needs of the industry.
A CII official said that the state centres of CII has been asked to interact with the state governments and find out the ITIs for which the states will like private participation for skills upgradation.